Random Fashion Thoughts (Part 3: Style farmer strikes back) - our general discussion thread

[zissou]

Man, I just want a good job where I can wear all of my nice clothes and my Aldens. I’m entering the last month of my job as a professor (not entirely sad about this), with nothing else lined up yet. I had a great first interview for a program assistant job, but had to suffer through explaining why I would want the job since I’m obviously overqualified.

 

[mhip]

Don't Mourn Organize makes belts from saddle, bridle, and harness leather. These come in different thicknesses. As you may know, saddle, bridle, and harness leather come from their use in saddlery. Bridle leather was traditionally used for bridle reins; harness leather for harnesses; saddle leather for saddles.

Scott over at Don't Mourn Organize uses very thick leathers. I can't remember his standard harness thickness, but I had mine shaved down to 0.25" in terms of thickness. That makes it much thicker than most belts on the market, but still comfortable to wear. You can get it thicker, if you want. You can also get it in different colors, but I went with natural and just allowed the belt to tan naturally.

One application of Obeneaf's LP:

View attachment 1397451


Then with a bit of wear:

View attachment 1397453


Scott offers different decorative stitching patterns, as well. I had this one below made a few years ago. The belt is made with two layers of leather for even more heft, and then sewn together using a "Clint stitch" pattern. The stitching pattern is named after a Clint Eastwood belt.

View attachment 1397454
View attachment 1397455


Sugar Cane also makes studded belts. Self Edge has a bunch of stuff like this. Bryceland's also works with a custom belt maker for mid-century styled, thick leather belts.

View attachment 1397460

Not gonna lie...
I'm completely impressed with your belt reply.

 

[WBaker]

I've been slowly getting into fountain pens over the last few months, and it's definitely one of the dorkiest things I've gotten interested in (and the competition is steep). Some fountain pen reviews I've read are amazingly tedious (as I'm sure you know!). I can't even imagine what i's like going to a convention.

There was a fountain pen YouTuber, who has since stopped, who began all his videos with "Hello pen friends!". I would watch these with my old roommates in college and it always got a laugh. Became a bit of an inside joke. At one point I isolated him saying "Hello pen friends!" and put it as a short track in a Playlist for a party that was set to play every few songs.

I'd recommend the conventions if they're in your neck of the woods as a fun day trip. There's basically no big money to be made for anyone in the pen hobby, so it's all one big passion project. Especially if you're a younger person I've found most everyone will match your enthusiasm and be eager to chat and share.

I got a few old Mont Blancs that I inherited from my grandmother that I'm trying to restore to working order, so far trying to identify the model has been very tedious work. Maybe I should just post pics at some pen forum and go from there.

Spoiler: long form response

Yeah fountain pen network will be a wealth of information, it is almost certainly restorable. Is it missing parts or just not writing correctly? I'm guessing it's a piston filler (nob at end of pen that you twist to draw up ink). I'd be happy to point you in the right direction if you want to explain in what way the pen isn't writing. I was lucky enough to live near the Fountain Pen Shop of Monrovia (CA). The owner was this guy Fred Kringle, I'd pop in on weekends and show him random ebay finds and ask 101 questions. He was a wealth of undocumented knowledge, when he was a kid he visited Parker factory Wisconsin and spent a day shadowing an engineer there who indulged his curiosity. He passed away last year so I feel lucky to have met him, and intend to continue sharing the information he passed on to me.

 

[troika]

Equus does a laced leather belt that is a bit different from the western style whip stitched belt:

Equus Leather

Looking for Equus Leather? Us too.

www.equusleather.co.uk

You can get it done in harness you don't kje bridle leather, I think, and you have your choice of buckles. I'm replacing the seriously thin strap for my Bottega Veneta belt with one of their straps.

ESDE also makes cool belts from a much more pliable leather, in your color and length of choice. Super cool buckle options. I'm sorta spent out right now, but I'll probably get one of their belts with the TACIT madee buckle in the summer:

Belts Archives - ESDE

esde-bags.com

Lovin these fits

 

[dieworkwear]

There was a fountain pen YouTuber, who has since stopped, who began all his videos with "Hello pen friends!". I would watch these with my old roommates in college and it always got a laugh. Became a bit of an inside joke. At one point I isolated him saying "Hello pen friends!" and put it as a short track in a Playlist for a party that was set to play every few songs.

The Pen Habit! I love that channel.

I'm bummed that he stopped posting. I found his videos to be really useful and informative. They were also among the first, along with Brian Goulet, to be high quality in terms of production value.

The other legendary fountain pen line: "HEY THERE! I'll tell you what I like about it and what I don't like about it. ..... And I'll gladly see you later."

 

[imatlas]

Lovin these fits

"Hey Bob, you mind pulling on this belt? We need a model."

"Sure, let me just tuck in my shirt a bit."

 

[troika]

"Hey Bob, you mind pulling on this belt? We need a model."

"Sure, let me just tuck in my shirt a bit."

Stupid sexy khakis

 

[imatlas]

Stupid sexy khakis

Dat skinny bootay

 

[whorishconsumer]

Equus does a laced leather belt that is a bit different from the western style whip stitched belt:

Equus Leather

Looking for Equus Leather? Us too.

www.equusleather.co.uk

You can get it done in harness you don't kje bridle leather, I think, and you have your choice of buckles. I'm replacing the seriously thin strap for my Bottega Veneta belt with one of their straps.

ESDE also makes cool belts from a much more pliable leather, in your color and length of choice. Super cool buckle options. I'm sorta spent out right now, but I'll probably get one of their belts with the TACIT madee buckle in the summer:

Belts Archives - ESDE

esde-bags.com

I could see myself considering one of these Equi.

"Hey Bob, you mind pulling on this belt? We need a model."

"Sure, let me just tuck in my shirt a bit."

"For God's sake, Bob. Eat a sandwich and do some squat thrusts. We're trying to save a business here."

 

[msg]

Apropos of the slipper discussion

 

[Patek]

Apropos of the slipper discussion

Way too cheap. That has to be the price for each shoe.

 

[the shah]

The fashion industry wants to slow down. Can it?

Gucci, Dries Van Noten and Lane Crawford have published proposals for reducing their environmental footprint

www.ft.com

As it's paywalled, here is the text:

The fashion industry wants to slow down. Can it?

Gucci, Dries Van Noten and Lane Crawford have published proposals for reducing their environmental footprint

On Monday afternoon, in a sunbathed studio in Rome, Gucci creative director Alessandro Michele announced via a virtual press conference that the Italian label plans to reduce its yearly show schedule from five — three for women’s, two for men’s — to two. The brand has already cancelled its spring/summer show in September.

“I don’t think we have enough time to listen to ourselves,” Michele said, intermittently waving a black fan. “We should not start over in the same way, breathless, because it has been too difficult.”

The hope, a spokesperson wrote in a follow-up email, is to produce fewer, more focused collections with a “greater emphasis on longevity”.

The brand’s Pre-fall and Cruise collections, which refresh the stores with new merchandise over the winter holidays and the summer, will be eliminated, although Gucci may still produce one-offs, such as collaborations or capsule collections for Chinese new year.


Gucci’s creative director Alessandro Michele
The scheme still leaves Gucci with plenty of wriggle room to produce lots of stuff. But the move towards less — to show less, to produce less — is significant coming from a brand that has championed, both aesthetically and financially, “more is more”. Since the appointment of Michele and chief executive Marco Bizzarri in 2015, Gucci’s revenues have grown from €3.5bn (in 2014) to €9.6bn, making it one of the world’s highest-grossing luxury brands. “I hope other brands will follow [our example],” Michele said.

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Others are certainly considering it. In recent weeks, as stores and factories have closed, and major US retailers such as Neiman Marcus and JC Penney have filed for bankruptcy, members of the fashion industry have gathered, via video conference, to propose a reset of how they produce, show and sell collections. One coalition, led by designer Dries Van Noten, Lane Crawford president Andrew Keith and Altuzarra chief executive Shira Sue Carmi, published a letter earlier this month calling for a readjustment to the retail calendar, so that collections are sold in alignment with the seasons, and discounted only at the end. The group also proposed the industry cut down on “unnecessary product” and travel.

A few days before Gucci’s press conference, I spoke with Van Noten, a Paris-based designer whose label is part of the Spanish fragrance group Puig, and Keith, of the Hong Kong-based luxury retailer Lane Crawford, on Zoom to discuss why they think the industry is in need of an overhaul.


Designer Dries Van Noten
Q: Over the past decade, designers have dramatically increased the volume and frequency of new goods via “drops” and collaborations. Are we going to see those go away?

Keith: There is very much a place for new, exciting products. We need to stimulate customers, to get products in front of them at the right time, to be more agile within the season. [That could mean] smaller drops or special products for customers in particular regions. We need to get retail back into a position where it is not relying on discounts as the sole lever [to get customers to buy]. We need to get customers inspired again.

Van Noten: It’s also about respect. It’s not respectful for the customer who buys a winter coat in September to see that the moment it gets wintery, [the coat is discounted] 50 per cent. The customer who has a really strong love for fashion has felt manipulated. The luxury market has looked too much to fast fashion and the high street.


Dries Van Noten AW20 © Jason Lloyd-Evans
Q: If designers want to sell more at full-price, do you think prices also need to be lowered?

Keith: One of the issues that we have had is that pricing has not necessarily been consistent [across categories], and there is an opportunity to be more transparent. The pricing has to reflect the craftsmanship and the humanity and creativity that’s gone into producing it. Going on sale at the end of the season enables people who wouldn’t necessarily be able to buy at full price to have access to the products, and it should be like that. It’s about a balance. I’m not sure a blanket approach to reducing pricing is necessarily the way to go.

Q: Do fashion weeks and fashion shows also need a rethink?

Van Noten: There’s not going to be a [women’s] show in September, we don’t have the budget, it’s not right to spend so much money on a show when maybe only 50-100 people can attend [because of social distancing guidelines]. Of course I’m going to miss it. I want to go back to that system, but in a more sustainable way, because now we realise we can do much better. It’s going to be really exciting what we can do digitally; maybe in the future it will be a combination of both.


Dries Van Noten SS20 © Jason Lloyd-Evans
Keith: The life of the buyer has been pretty horrendous, we’re constantly on the road, travelling 150-200 days a year. There is definitely an opportunity for us to do more digitally. [However,] if you’re selling [a collection] to a buyer using Zoom or FaceTime, there’s going to have to be a combination of [physical] fabric swatches that will make the experience richer.

Q: One way to cut down on travel would be to combine the women’s and men’s fashion weeks.

Van Noten: For me it would be very difficult. When we show, we get a lot of responses, positive, negative — we learn from it. We also get commercial input. Combining men’s and women’s fashion weeks would also be technically difficult because we couldn’t have all the clients at the same time. The pre-collections are far less efficient; every brand is selling at their own time, and buyers have to fly five times a season up and down Europe and America to see collections. Maybe something has to be done there.


Dries Van Noten SS20 © Jason Lloyd-Evans
Q: Your letter called for “less unnecessary product” and “less waste in fabric and inventory”. Dries, are there products that you have made that you would not make again, because you find them unnecessary?

Van Noten: Of course. We need to make clothes that are really us, and that we believe in. There is a lot of surplus we could easily remove from collection without sacrifice. The [next] collection will be smaller, simply because we do not have ability to do [more] financially.

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Keith: As China opens up and customers are coming back to stores, there is a change in how people are buying. Customers are looking for pieces that will be in their wardrobes for a while. That’s going to affect how we edit [our assortment]. There isn’t space for average or medium products.

Q: You’ve published the letter. How do you turn the proposal into action?

Van Noten: We can hope. We can’t force. We aren’t going to be the fashion police. It’s not an easy year, and next year is also not going to be easy for anybody. All we can do is suggest, and we can start with our own business. Maybe we can start to create a new normal.

 

[motosacto]

I have been on the hunt for a thick leather belt but have had zero luck. The only brand of which I'm aware that makes thicker belts, and belts adjacent to a style I'm going for, is Cucinelli, although I can't find any current offerings that quite match my vision.

I'm looking for a calfskin-or-similar belt, again thick, ideally with some level of complexity in the rendering, whether that be braiding, twisting or just unevenness in the surface, and finished with a fat, brass buckle (not cowboy-size, just not dainty). Ideally it would be cherry or burgundy in color. I don't want a bridle belt and and I'm not looking for a fully-woven belt - just a belt with some intricacy to it. Barring everything else, though, it should be thick.

Suggestions and links welcome.

Are you interested/willing to go Western for the belt leather style, if not the actual buckle?

https://www.sheplers.com/ariat-golden-tooled-western-belt---reg-big/120F77.html

or check out all of these:

https://www.bootbarn.com/mens/accessories/mens-belts/

Lots of options, and for many you can change out the buckle with something else. I have a (thick) tooled leather belt that I got for a western-style fly fishing buckle (there's that frivolous sport again)....

 

[Benesyed]

Looking for black Bermuda shorts, must have a pleat and be above knee.

Any recommendations?

 

[MarkI]

Seconding @dieworkwear with the Dont Mourn Organize suggestion